Welcome to Azrael's website :: Introduction

This is my third iteration of my main website, updated 2010 because my previous site was getting very out of date. There is a little bit of information on me available on this page, with further details on the About Me page.

Who am I?

Background

I am, as anyone is, a product of their lifetime education and experiences.

I am fascinated and intrigued by the beauty and complexity of nature, though I should point out quickly for anyone who knows me and may find this surprising - I'm not all soppy and hippy about it. What impresses me is that such intricate diversity is all derived from such simple and almost trivial to understand processes of DNA replication and evolution.

It was out of this interest that I studied and gained a BSc (hons) in Molecular and Cellular Biology.

It was while at University that I first got my hands on real computers and this strange fairly new thing called the internet. I'm not sure quite how much time during my undergraduate degree was spent exploring this new phenomenom, but suffice to say I'm fairly sure that now, years later, I'm still suffering from the sleep deprivation.

This interest led me to return to University, and leave with an MSc in Computing Science.

What do I do?

Work

I'm a great fan of the saying that if you have a job you enjoy you'll never work a day of your life. With that in mind I guess you could say that I don't do all that much work. Being rather more prosaic however, I work within the field of education technology, working at a University to advise and support academic staff with their use of learning technologies, and undertaking research into the application of new technologies and how they can be used for learning.

I am a Certified Member of the Association for Learning Technology (CMALT), and a professional Member of the BCS, the chartered institute for IT (CMBS).

Fun

For fun i do a variety of things which some would say trend towards the geeky. I love reading, redesigning websites (although my own seems to get ignored until a change is long overdue), programming (for fun only, at work I prefer to create a design rather than implement someone elses), role-playing (as in playing table-top role-playing games), and hanging out with friends.

What else?

Politics & Religion

Some people say you should never discuss politics and religion with friends, frankly if you can't discuss these with your friends you have to seriously question why they are your friends! I suppose a followup to that saying would be not to discuss them on your website, so I'll break that right now. I have strong political and religious views, and I am happy to make them known.

When it comes to politics I lean towards the left more than the right, and the libertarian more than the authoritarian. I have in the past been a Labour voter, however my loyalties now lie with the Pirate Party UK.

When it comes to religion my views are quite clear cut. There are no gods, faith in supreme beings is wasted, there are no (super-)natural mysteries which can not be explained by a sufficiently advanced form of science, and all religions are parasites on human frailty.

Nighthawks et al

As part of my role-playing I frequently contribute towards RPG wikis. These contributions generally take the form of a first-person write up of stories I have been involved with.

Social Media/Networking

It is vital for my field of work that I remain current with all forms of technologies that may be suited to use in the learning context; these include social networking and social media.

I can be found on a variety of different places, with various 'blogs. When 'blogging coincided with my interest in programming, I even wrote my own 'blog to teach myself PHP, though once the appeal of that faded I quickly moved on to using a blogspot account.